This week’s snow was one of the heaviest to fall on the city in decades. As much as six inches fell, which is believed to be the largest snow accumulation in Paris since 1987, according to The Local France.

The city's government encouraged citizens to leave their cars at home, but still, about 2,000 people were left stranded on a highway outside of Paris Tuesday evening. The snowfall was enough to paralyze Paris’s public transportation system. High-speed trains and metro subway trains were operating under speed restrictions and with many delays.

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"We anticipated it, but we don't have the necessary means to deal with it when 3 centimeters of snow is falling every hour," France's transport minister Elisabeth Borne said in a statement.

But some Parisians took full advantage of the rare event. Instead of waiting on a bus, some dug out their snowboards or skis and shredded down the hills in Montmartre or in front of the Eiffel Tower. Others built tiny snowmen from the powder that had collected on the sidewalks.

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The last major snowfall that caused delays in Paris was in 2013. And before that, the previous was in 2010. "We are not going to adapt our infrastructure for an exceptional moment which occurs every 4 or 5 years," government spokesperson Benjamin Griveaux said.

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And, if all else fails, perhaps skiing around Paris will catch on as an alternative form of transportation.